For the maiden voyage of the Culture Study podcast, we’re taking a hard look at a problem that plagues us all: terrible clothes. Why are shirts falling apart or pilling after just a few wears? Why does Gucci charge $3200 for a polyester sweater? What happened to ironing and will we ever dry clean en masse again?
Amanda Mull, staff writer at The Atlantic, joins me for a deep dive into the past twenty years of fashion production (and consumption) trends.
If you like the ep, it helps a fledging pod SO MUCH if you can help us get the word out. Share it with your friends, post it to social media, “follow” it in your podcast app, or write us a review on iTunes. You’re the best and we literally could not make this pod without your help.
Scroll down for:
Show notes, including visuals of some of the things we talk about in the pod
Subscriber-only discussion of our own shitty clothes and Amanda’s contextualization/advice
A link to submit your own questions/ideas for future pods
Scroll up and look for the drop down menu to find:
A transcript of this week’s episode (these are currently automated — if we get enough subscribers, we’ll pay someone to do them and they’ll be even better)
The free or paid subscriber version of the podcast — you can play it here or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’d like to add the subscriber-only podcast to your podcast app, here’s how.
Show notes:
The tweet I describe in the beginning of the podcast:
Read Amanda Mull’s piece in The Atlantic: “Your Sweaters Are Garbage”
Read Sarah Zhang’s piece in The Atlantic: “How I Got Bamboo-zled by Baby Clothes”
Amanda mentioned: Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn: A People’s History of Clothing
Some other Amanda pieces I love: Millennials Have Lost Their Grip on Fashion, The Free-Returns Party Is Over, How Shoppers Got Tricked By Vegan Leather
You can see Amanda’s Jeffrey Dahmer glasses in the bio of her Instagram (which is private, so don’t friend request unless you actually know her)
Paul Mescal’s rat tail situation (perhaps more appropriately called a mullet)
This week, we’re looking for your questions for future episodes about:
Resurgent interest in early 2000s music (with Switched on Pop’s Nate Sloan)
The Mean Girls Trailer
A deep analysis of Taylor and Travis Kelce discourse
Kevin Bacon’s Hott Instagram and Gen-X/Elder Millennial Instagram in general
“Little treat” culture
You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here.
Now come hang out with us in the discussion — I’ve put a few ideas to get us started below:
What’s your best made piece of clothing — and what’s the piece of clothing that SHOULD be well made but has evidenced itself to be shit?
Did you go check the tags of your sweaters after listening WHAT DID THEY SAY???
How do we think of this general decline in clothing quality as a symptom of deregulation?
I’d love to hear your thoughts about the decline in ironing and “women’s domestic tasks” in general.
PLUS ANYTHING ELSE YOU’D LOVE TO TALK ABOUT
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Culture Study Podcast to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
